


Day 2: Dreams

by GemmaRose



Series: Ten Days of Lawlu 2019 [2]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Dreamwalking, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Nightmares, Post-Marineford
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-09
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2020-04-23 11:51:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19150474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GemmaRose/pseuds/GemmaRose
Summary: Healing Luffy's body was, well, noteasybut understandable. To heal his mind enough that Law can be sure he'll wake up when the drugs wear off requires more of a delicate touch.





	Day 2: Dreams

Law slumped against the wall in the Polar Tang’s operating room a solid twelve hours after Marineford, and slid slowly down to the floor. The heart monitor attached to Straw Hat Luffy beeped steadily, and the sound reverberated in his ears even as he slipped over the threshold into dreamland.

Bepo wasn’t asleep yet, and without that familiar dreamscape to land in Law found himself adrift in the nothingness between dreams. It was familiar, almost comforting, but he couldn’t stay tonight. He shut his eyes against the pressing blackness and reached out, feeling for nearby dreamers. Distance worked strangely in dreams, measured as much in bonds of the heart and soul as in physical units, but after what could’ve been anywhere from two minutes to two hours Law brushed against a dreamscape he didn’t recognize. He opened his eyes, and found himself on the deck of a ship. At least, he was pretty sure it was the deck of a ship. It rolled under his feet with each fierce wave, and to either side he could see white railings, but he stood on grass facing a copse of trees with an honest to god treehouse nestled in their interwoven boughs.

The specifics were unimportant, though. What mattered was the dreamer this place belonged to, the mind which had conjured up a wonderous pirate ship as the truest expression of its soul and now set that self-same ship ablaze and threw it into a storm. “Straw Hat?” he called, and caught a faint sob on the wind. “Straw Hat, I’m here to help.” he called again, turning to the wind and heading towards the now audible sound of someone crying.

It was one thing to know that an injured mind manifested differently in dreamscapes, and another entirely to see it for himself. Straw Hat Luffy, curled up in a cubby set into the ship’s sunburst figurehead, looked no older than seven years old. It made Law’s chest ache, seeing a man strong enough to challenge the World Government broken badly enough his dreamself could only manifest as a child.

“A- A- Aaaace.” Straw Hat sobbed, and it took every ounce of strength Law possessed not to be thrown back to his own dreamscape at the sound of such raw grief coming from a body far too small to endure it.

“Come here.” Law said softly, reaching into the cubby and lifting out Straw Hat. The boy pitched towards him immediately, deceptively strong hands clutching at the front of Law’s jacket as if he was the only solid thing in the world. “Let’s go somewhere more calm.” he murmured, and a thought and sideways step were all it took to return to his own dreamscape. He’d not stayed here more than a few minutes at a time since he met Bepo, and the chill caught him off-guard. More striking, however, was the silence. The snowy portion of his dreamscape was always silent, and it seemed that effect extended to visitors as well because Luffy’s sobs no longer reached his ears, even though the child still shuddered in his arms.

Law’s heart beat faster in his chest at the sight of a flash of red up on the hill, and he squeezed his eyes shut to banish the sight from his mind. Straw Hat needed to be supported right now, needed a soul to steady his own, needed the guttering spark of his will to live fed and guarded until it caught again and returned to the blazing fire Law knew it surely must be. He had put too much work into Straw Hat Luffy to let him die now.

The ruins of the town around him were as familiar as his own tattoos, and Law stepped deftly forward to sit on a crumbling stone wall. As long as he could, he would stay here with Luffy. He would guard his fellow Supernova from the storm of his own unconscious mind, and if that meant enduring the reminders of his own past then he would do so without complaint. To Luffy, this dreamscape was just a quiet, peaceful place of hills and ruins and falling snow. Law would give him no reason to think it was anything else.

**Author's Note:**

> Bonus points to anyone who can guess what the other half of Law's dreamscape is.


End file.
